Frazz (11/14/09)

When I think back to my childhood, I recall a lot of time spent playing softball with my friends. I remember birthday parties with my classmates and visits to my extended family members. What I don’t remember is a single homework assignment, at least off the top of my head. But despite my having blocked out those assignments, I’m pretty sure they took more than five minutes to complete. If a single worksheet is all the kid in this strip has to finish over the weekend, then he’s a lot luckier than I was.

Frazz (9/27/09)

Although I’m more of a baseball fan, I pay some attention to football, especially at the beginning and end of the season. And as a casual fan, I understand why this comic strip, set in Michigan, didn’t cast its banged-up coach as a former member of the Detroit Lions. Despite their win earlier today, the Lions have become the laughing stock of the league after their winless season of a year ago. I’m not sure if Southern State is a real school, or if the Cherry Bowl is a real bowl game, but even if these two institutions are fake, they would still impart more prestige than a stint with the bottom-feeders of the NFL. Where have you gone, Barry Sanders?

By the way, I fully recognize the hypocrisy of dogging on the Lions while cheering for the Chicago Cubs. But after rooting for the underdog Cubs in baseball and the underdog Cavaliers in basketball, I find that my capacity for cheering on sad sacks has reached its natural limit.

Frazz (9/23/09)

When I was in high school, I drove my American History teacher crazy by asking her obscure questions about the Constitution. None of those questions come to mind at the moment, because none of them were all that important. It’s not as if anyone’s inalienable rights might have hung in the balance; rather my queries were based entirely on semantics. It was a surefire (and immature) way to get a rise out of somebody, and I see that the young man in today’s Frazz has taken much the same approach in dealing with his teacher. What gets me, though, is how he seems to be beaming at having driven the poor woman to distraction. Ah, youth.

Frazz (9/6/09)

It took me a few moments to sort through the various summer activities depicted on the left side of this strip. Because the first and third panels showed the same boy sitting in what appeared to be the same tree, I tried hard to coax some sort of narrative out of them before realizing that they were drawn to depict the disconnected joys of summer. And while the panels seemed disjointed at first, they practically leapt to life when compared to the drearily similar office work that dominates the rest of the strip.

Frazz (7/17/09)

Living above a bakery sure sounds like a dream, but in reality it would probably turn someone into a groggy mess. Imagine waking up several times during the night (each and every night) to the smell of fresh baked bread. That would be pleasant for the first week or so, but would quickly turn into an extended nightmare along the lines of caring for a newborn. And while a bakery would smell a whole lot better than a newborn, the effect on a person’s circadian rhythm would be roughly the same.

Frazz (5/21/09)

There’s nothing more embarrassing than noticing that your fly is unzipped and then coming to the realization that it’s probably been unzipped for a good part of the day. Check that, there’s nothing more embarrassing than noticing that your fly is unzipped while standing in a room with a dozen people, then wondering how many of them have taken notice of your predicament and waiting anxiously for a moment when you can sneak out and (inconspicuously) set things to rights. That’s why I’m usually blunt about telling friends that their pants are unzipped, although this strip has convinced me that the subtle approach is not without its charms.

Frazz (5/19/09)

Years ago, as I was approaching my teens, I found myself looking for ways to avoid having to work for a living. The most obvious path to sloth seemed to be winning the lottery and living off of my untold millions. I remember coaxing my dad into buying a “better chance of winning” pick four ticket for me, and being genuinely disappointed when a different set of numbers were announced on TV. The fact that I spent my own allowance money on the ticket made it even more discouraging. It was then that I realized the lottery was a game of almost insurmountable odds and that I would be best served by turning my attention to other harebrained schemes, like college.